Dear Friends,
What is there to write about when you don’t want to write about what everybody else is writing about? I’ll see in a minute, but first, I can’t remain silent on this…
I find the post-election circus depressing beyond belief. We are now at the stage where the “stolen election” arguments boil down to one of these two things:
You mean to tell me all these other Republicans won and Trump didn’t? Has to be fraud.
We cannot certify this election because there are so many allegations and doubts! People will never trust elections again!
As for the first question, yes. Enough people very clearly indicated by their vote that they wanted Republicans in office across the board, but not Donald Trump in the White House. Only those with some kind of personal emotional attachment to the President think this is weird. It is how I voted, other people in my family voted, and how a few of my friends voted, I’ve discovered. It is not fraudulent, nor a mystery needing uncovering. The majority of people in the pertinent electoral college states were done with Donald Trump. The end.
It is the second argument that really riles me up, because it is a pernicious kind of manipulation. The other day Lin Wood, one of the champions of the “stolen election” cause (and longtime Democrat voter and donor), said that we have to stop the certification of the election because there are so many doubts in people’s minds about the integrity of the system; and then he added that Republicans should refrain from voting in the runoff election in January because you can’t trust the system (Hmm, a conspiratorial mind might wonder). Other well-known public figures have adopted a similar line: how can we inaugurate Biden when the American people have all these doubts?
Who created those doubts? The very people now using “doubts” to try to get their way. You know what you call someone who creates unnecessary drama out of thin air and then demands to get their way because, well, it’s the only way to resolve all the drama? A narcissist. A power player. Someone holding you (or your country) hostage. We’ve known this about the President for a long time. If facts reflect badly on him, they aren’t facts—they’re “fake news.” Bad company really does corrupt good morals, and people who ought to know better are following, sometimes enthusiastically, right along with this manipulative charade.
And now it might cost the GOP two critical senate seats in Georgia. Good job, everybody. Well done. You’ve all proven yourselves to be the real patriots, above and beyond the call of duty.
People keep this up even after hand recounts of ballots in Georgia matched the machine numbers. Wonder why all those Republican election officials are going along with the “scam”? There’s your answer. Not because they’re “Deep State” operatives, but because they have some integrity. Just yesterday someone posted a shocking video of election officials purportedly pulling suitcases of ballots from underneath a table after having everyone leave the room! Gasp! Well, first off, it’s pretty amazing wizardry given that the actual paper matches the votes on the machine. Second, nothing amiss happened whatsoever. People still talk about votes being counted “overseas” even though no voting machine is even connected to the Internet and it wouldn’t even be possible. If you’re still holding out for the “Kraken” to be unleashed by Sidney Powell, you should find something else to hold out for. Here’s a witness for Trump at a Michigan hearing, sitting next to Rudy Guiliani, who kept reaching over to get her to shut up:
She seems super legit. The easy proliferation of every crackpot theory is depressing for me, and doesn’t bode well for our country.
Anyhow, Erick Erickson, who knows a thing or two about elections in Georgia, decided to lose his temper a bit the other night on Instagram, and it’s pretty eye-opening if you’re interested in boring stuff like “the truth.” Sorry about the occasional profanity he lets slip, but I do imagine that hosting the only statewide call-in talk radio show in Georgia these days would give anyone an ulcer or worse.
The Gospel & Social Justice
I’ve been waiting a long time, but now Thaddeus Williams’s new book, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth is on the very cusp of its release. I was privileged to read some early draft chapters, and now I’ve read an entire advance copy. It’s everything I hoped for and more.
There are few topics raging today as complicated and confusing as “social justice,” along with its underlying ideology, Critical [Race/Sex/Gender] Theory. The language and lingo is attractive to Americans—who, after all, love “fairness” and “equality”—and particularly Christians, who rightly feel a special obligation to pursue true justice in the world. What could possibly be wrong with a movement dedicated to social justice? You haven’t been awake for the past few years if you haven’t noticed the amount of conflict this issue has caused in both the church and wider society.
Williams brilliantly asks his “12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice” and teases out what, exactly, we might mean by that term and scrutinizes it under the blazing light of the Bible. It is superbly written—he has a true gift for lively and engaging illustrations. But what I was not entirely prepared for in reading the book is how utterly Christ-exalting and gospel-saturated it is. There are sections that will make your heart sing at the power of the gospel message, which so transcends the worldly counterfeits on offer in the marketplace today. Reconciliation and unity will never come by means of purposely stoking division and hatred; it will only come when we recognize the God-hood of God, the image of God in each other, and the allure of false idols that distort our vision.
The superlatives that ran through my mind as I read just piled up: marvelous, extraordinary, superb, and so forth. I know that it was not an easy book to write, but I cannot adequately express my gratitude that he has written it. It should be required reading for everyone—it will certainly be assigned to my teenagers. I truly mean it when I say that I hope everyone makes it the best-selling book Zondervan has ever published (okay, I don’t think it will outstrip the NIV any time soon, but aside from that).
Please pre-order your copy right now.
Miscellany
I apologize for this being a short one to all of you who want lengthy missives from me. It hasn’t been the most inspiring week for me, so I just talked about two big things that have captured my attention. Please just pay attention to the second one, because the election nonsense will be over soon. Social Justice will not.
Jerry Bowyer is an economist, and he has a new book out that I ought to mention, too: The Maker Versus The Takers: What Jesus Really Said About Social Justice & Economics. I hope to have more to say on that in the future, but for now I wanted to mention I loved his appearance the other day on The World & Everything In It podcast. It isn’t every day that someone shines a light on the underlying worldview assumptions of Keynesian economics, and, wow, it is so refreshing. Listen to it here.
I had the privilege of buying a new dishwasher and water heater on the same day. So that’s fun. Not. But at least I get to learn some new handyman techniques from YouTube!
The weather is very pleasant for early December here in Big Sky Country, so I think I’ll wrap this up, head up to the mountains, cut down a Christmas Tree, sight in a couple of firearms, and fish a few trout holes on my way back. So I’ll let Taj Mahal singing “Fishin’ Blues” be my soundtrack. Seriously, this guy has something like the Platonic Ideal of a bluesman’s voice!